Studies in Crap Presents/ Apologizes for: Killinger!

February 5, 2009

The Cover Promises: Lord, where to start? With “He’s ruggedly virile, he’s karate-quick”? With the fact that he likes his ladies not just topless but nippleless, too? With the tiny frogman who services his metal manhood?

Representative Quotes:

“Killinger turned to face her. There was a definite interruption in the pattern of his white shorts. (page 95)”

“Killinger feinted with the start of a kinkeri, a genital knee-kick designed to castrate without use of a knife” (page 155).

Imagine, for a moment, that you are P.K. Palmer, and you’ve just conceived of the most over-the-top badass last name in the history of tough-guy fiction. You tried Deathington, Murderwitz, and PJ Woehouse, all before hitting on your masterpiece: Killinger! A name that elevates any sentence!

Some of your best:

Killinger had made an oil and vinegar dressing with a touch of dill.

Killinger was helicopter-happy.

Killinger’s movements flowed at great speed and grace. A superb ballet dancer could not have made his movements more fluid nor with more true beauty.

No matter what business came up, Killinger ran his two miles every day and did his Karate exercises.

It was where Killinger hung his meat and poultry to age properly.

Killinger hung up quickly to cut off complaints and because Marja-Liisa had moved his hand to her golden grove and had begun quivering against his fingers and her sighs had become deep.

Killinger was proud of his Chinese junk.

But then, stupidly, you keep right on christening and destroy everything. You had to try to give Killinger his “Bond. James Bond” moment. Now, readers cringe as your hero acquaints himself with Marja-Liisa Kikkonen [sic], a Posrche-driving, cheetah-raising associate professor of marine biology Palmer describes as “a magnificent six feet of female”:

The man looked at the long splendid legs before him. He looked up past them and past the glorious rounds of the breasts at a wondrous face and long tawny hair. He rose to introduce himself.

“My name is Jeddediah Killinger the Third.”

Jeddediah? The Third? Stupid shit like that is exactly why every novel on the front tables at Barnes & Noble have photos of shoes on the cover: American men have given up on books.

Like Marja-Liisa in Killinger’s car, the aptly named Palmer labors mightily to please his men. Unfortunately, he works so hard it starts to chafe. The sad truth: his hero is much more Jeddediah the Third than he is KILLINGER.

Sure, Killinger drives a ’57 Thunderbird, maintains “a hard muscled body that belies his age, which was 41,” and lives on a Chinese junk houseboat with Kimo, a “Japanese boy from Idaho” who he is teaching “the martial art of karate.”

Killinger’s almost superhuman skill? He can do long division in his head.

And does anything excuse sentences like “Marja-Liisa started walking slowly to where Killinger lay, dressed only in his skin”?

Here, Killinger sexually harasses his crying secretary Marjorie, who is “wonderfully slim where a girl should be slim and wondrously full where a girl should be full”:

Stepping back a bit, he put his hand under chin and lifted it. “Say… prunes.”

With the word, her lips went into a lovely bee-sting pout. “Prunes…”

Killinger kissed her tenderly.

His adventure is a confounding muddle about a crashed plane, its mysterious cargo, the CIA, the KGB, a kidnapping, some “faceless men,” a plan to dump dye into lakes, and – oh, who cares? Other than some sex, karate kicks, and the use of “prunes” to loosen constipated lips, the two most exciting things Killinger does are:

1. Threaten an old lady with an audit.

2. Explain to the associate professor of marine biology what “Roy G. Biv” has to do with rainbows.

Highlight: Palmer was a one-man Cinemax. Killinger offers more big ol’ 70s breasts than a visit from Morganna, the Kissing Bandit, seen here with a gummy-mouthed hobo.

Killinger’s top five moments with the ultra-vixens:

5. “From the top of her long tawny hair to tuft of her golden triangle, to the tips of her toes, she was tanned a delicious, golden, dusky peach color. Except her nipples. They were pink and not yet risen in excitement.”

4. “With her long hair and splendid body, she was a wonderful and warm animal. In profile, the fullness of her breasts accentuated the flatness of her tummy. There was an aura of intelligence and competence about her.”

3. “Her breasts were exquisite. There were nipples almost the same color as her auburn hair and the junction of her thighs. Not a flaw did he see in her skin. Juno dove into the ocean. Her disappearing rear view would have been a delight to any connoisseur.”

2. “Her breasts were full and round and flat. Her auburn hair, chopped and shingled, framed her face like a glowing halo as she stood nude before the mirror counting out a hundred strokes of the tortoise shell hairbrush. Methodically, she counted to fifty and then switched the brush to her left hand. Each vigorous movement exercised the pectoral muscle beneath a breast, helping its firmness.”

1. “When she stood straight, to toss her hair back over her shoulders, it completely covered her breasts. That is, if Audrey White had breasts.”

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